Evernote migrates data to Google Cloud Platform

Notes platform Evernote has announced plans to migrate its complete data infrastructure from its own servers and networks onto Google’s Cloud.

In an official blog post, Ben McCormack, VP of Operations at Evernote, wrote that following a thorough research and review period it was concluded that a cloud solution was a clear requirement for improving performance, security, efficiency and scalability in the future.

Evernote has until now owned, managed and maintained its own data centres. The servers currently host about three petabytes of data from over 200 million Evernote users. While having its own personal infrastructure allowed for tailored configuration, according to McCormack the system was expensive, slow to upgrade and difficult to scale.

He suggested that moving to Google Cloud will allow the company to focus more time and resources on developing the Evernote portfolio – ‘For us, that means building the best home for your notes and giving you the tools to use them more effectively. It’s the right choice…’

With an existing relationship with Google, through a previous integration with Google Drive, Evernote has made swift progress on finalising the infrastructure plans. The data migration is expected to begin from next month, finishing towards the end of 2016.

Evernote added that security had been a major consideration when choosing its cloud provider, and that Google Cloud’s encryption at rest feature was a key draw. The firm noted that it would also be maintaining its ‘three laws of data protection’, which state that a user’s data belongs to them, is protected and is portable.

McCormack explained that a further benefit of the Google deal was access to the tech giant’s machine learning technologies, which power services such as translation, photo management, and voice search. He suggested that these tools would help Evernote customers to create better connections between ideas, and search for information and locate notes faster.

It is these machine learning and artificial intelligence capabilities which Google plans to leverage in attracting large enterprises to its cloud, over rivals Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure.